Escaped deer shot to death in Wind Gap

Owner killed Big Boy to keep him off road. Animal was "majestic.'

The story of Big Boy, a pet deer who escaped from his home in Wind Gap Wednesday, came to a quick, sad end Thursday morning.

Owner Ron Torgersen shot and killed the 225-pound deer in a field in Wind Gap rather than risk it causing a car accident on nearby Route 512.

"I put an end to a bad situation. That's the best way I can put it," Torgersen, an experienced hunter, said Thursday afternoon.

Torgersen said Wind Gap Police Chief Craig Armitage had no trouble with the shooting. Armitage could not be reached for comment, but had said Wednesday that he had given Torgersen permission to shoot the deer if necessary.

This is the second such incident in the Lehigh Valley in less than two weeks. On Dec. 28, Adam Horwith of North Whitehall Township shot and killed his pet elk Curious George after it escaped.

Horwith said he shot the elk rather than trying to tranquilize it to keep the animal from injuring someone or causing a traffic accident.

Big Boy, a 9-year-old white fallow deer, escaped from its half-acre pen before dawn Wednesday. Rather than running into the mountains or nearby farmland, the deer apparently stayed in and around Wind Gap.

Several residents spotted him and called police, with one woman -- seeing the deer's 3-foot-wide antlers -- reporting a moose in her yard.

Torgersen spent Wednesday morning and afternoon looking for Big Boy, giving up the search after dark. Early Thursday, friends and neighbors began calling him to report deer sightings. Torgersen said one man, a friend and fellow hunter, spent all day Wednesday on his back porch, keeping watch.

Torgersen and some friends tried to lead the deer back home, but Big Boy kept running out onto the road. It became clear, Torgersen said, that he could not safely get Big Boy across Route 512.

He couldn't let him just wander around, and he couldn't let a fallow deer -- which isn't native to the United States, let alone Pennsylvania -- into the wild. Fallow deer come from Europe, and typically live in the United States on preserves or as pets.

"His clock was ticking when he left here," said Gino Wismer of Laurys Station in North Whitehall Township. He's a friend of Torgersen, and a fellow hunter, who came to offer support Thursday.

In the woods behind the Midas Auto Service store, Torgersen shot Big Boy once with a rifle, killing him instantly. He said he knows his decision probably will upset some people, but he believes he did the right thing.

"He had no intention of coming back behind that fence," Torgersen said. "I didn't wake up this morning wanting to shoot my pet."

Wismer said Big Boy lived much longer than he would have in the wild. If the deer had stayed on the loose, he argued, another hunter would have shot him, or he would have been hit by a car.

"He was a majestic animal," Wismer said, looking at Big Boy's body. "That's a good word for it, majestic. He lived a good life."

Torgersen plans to mount Big Boy's head and upper body. He's already saved the antlers the deer had shed over the years, and wants to make them into a chandelier. He said the deer will get the type of memorial most humans don't get.

"This is Big Boy's life, right here," Torgersen said, looking at two sets of antlers: a small, finger-sized first pair and a much larger second pair. "This deer will not be forgotten."